Colette Magny

Colette Magny, a French singer and songwriter drawn to protest material, shaped her approach around blues, jazz, folk, poetry, and spoken word. She came into the world on October 31, 1926, in Paris, France. Her first recording arrived in 1963 as the CBS single "Melocoton," the nearest she would reach to a mainstream breakthrough; it later surfaced on her debut full-length solo album, Les Tuileries (1964). That project, her last for CBS, consisted of musical adaptations drawn from Victor Hugo, António Jacinto, Arthur Rimbaud, Rainer Maria Rilke, Antonio Machado, and Louis Aragon, together with two American traditionals and a handful of originals.

She resurfaced two years afterward on the short-lived Disques Mouloudji label with the experimental full-length "Avec" Poème (1966), shaped by musique concrète and featuring music credited to André Almuro. Magny next entered a lengthy association with Le Chant du Monde that began with the album Colette Magny (1967), sometimes identified by its opening track "Vietnam 67." Further releases on the label encompassed Magny 68 (1969), Feu et Rythme (1970), Répression (1973), Transit (1975), Chili un Peuple Crève... (1976), Visage -- Village (1977), Je Veux Chaanter (1979), Thanakan (1981), Cahier d'une Tortue (1981), and Chansons Pour Titine (1983).

During later years she issued Kevork (1989) on her own Colette Magny Promotion imprint, while portions of her Le Chant du Monde catalog received reissues in the early 1990s. Her death on June 12, 1997, in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Aveyron, France, prompted additional reissues that included Melocoton (1997), gathering highlights from her CBS period, and Blues (1999), which essentially repackaged her final Le Chant du Monde album, Chansons Pour Titine.